


tasted sundrops on his lips.

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, M/M, OR IS IT, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pre-Kerberos Mission, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, not quite drunken sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 18:39:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16792525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: And Keith knows that neither he nor Shiro are drunk, that he won't have this as an excuse: Shiro has barely taken a couple sips and he barely even feels the edge of it around his tongue, but Keith also knows that there is no such thing as a later to bet on, that life goes on in a blink and the only 'after' that exists are the consequences, but Shiro looks so beautiful against the black drop of the Scorpious (his zodiac, Keith things, stupidly, as if that meant anything at all) andit's not going to happen,, he knows that, realizes that it's a top-three-bad-ideas situation he might have andhe doesn't care.





	tasted sundrops on his lips.

And for one shining moment– before the fall, before the fear and the cold, before the screaming rush of air and the splash of seaspray– for one shining, iridescent moment, he kissed the clouds. he tasted sundrops on his lips. he stood where gods only dare to tread. he held the whole sky in his outstretched arms and the whole world in beneath his winged shoulders.  
the boy who ~~fell~~ flew. [j.p.](http://pencap.tumblr.com/)

The official Kerberos launch party is officially a week before the actual launch day, due to the exploration team need to be quarantined. Keith is allowed to be there thanks to Shiro: with no family of his own, Shiro doesn't have anyone _else_ to say goodbye to him except friends to see him go and make history. The fact that among all his friends Shiro asked _him_ to be there makes something warm and dangerously heavy sit in Keith's chest. 

It's also, really, the only reason why Keith would actually _be_ there. He's never been one for any kind of social gatherings, and while Shiro has told him that he has to get used to them for when 'it's his time', it doesn't mean Keith has to like it even a little, not how boot-liking it feels or how stiff-backed he has to be. He's learning, and he's learning not to hate the military rigidity as much as he does, but that doesn't change the fact that if it hadn't been Shiro who asked, he would have bailed on the whole thing. 

So he stays close to the corners and does his best to avoid Iverson and the rest of the officers, trying to stifle his yawning. At least it's not one of the times where he's the center of attention. Yes, Iverson did call him front and center when he noticed him, ready to tell investors and people relevant to the Garrison about him being one of the new promises and Keith had tried to be polite and not to glare as he was made into a spectacle, but that's thankfully over. Now he gets to see _Shiro_ be himself as people wonder about the trip and he laughs and shakes hands all around.

When Keith can't stand it anymore, he goes towards a balcony to get some free air, sighing, allowing himself to hunch over and roll his shoulders, still feeling as if he had a board between his shoulder blades.

He barely resists the urge to groan when he hears steps, sighing and pushing himself from against the railing, but his annoyance erases when he sees Shiro there. 

"Bored already?" Shiro asks him with an easy grin, coming forward and joining Keith. 

Since it's just them, Keith allows himself to still relax, arms crossed over the railing. 

"It's not really my thing yet," he says.

"Treasure the 'yet'" Shiro says, and then he nudges his side with his elbow a little. "I reckon that by the time I come back, with you just about to get your first bars, it _is_ going to be part of your thing."

Shiro sounds so certain that it's impossible for Keith not to preen a little, even as he does his part of rolling his eyes and mutter a 'please' that makes Shiro laugh, and it's an honest laugh, the kind that makes little wrinkles show by his eyes. It's that what gives Keith enough courage to ask.

"Do you have to stay for much longer?" he asks and then teases. "Or have enough people swooned over you?"

"You're hilarious, really," Shiro deadpans, but then he shrugs a bit. "It's mostly done, I guess. Why?"

"Seems a shame that your bike is starting to collect dust already when you're not gone yet, isn't it?", Keith says, trying for innocence and failing.

Shiro grins at him and Keith's stupid heart does a somersault that he does his best to ignore. "Meet me by the garage in fifteen."

**

It's not the first time they go hover racing through the night: during their last break, before Shiro got the Kerberos mission and before his break up with Adam, Keith had convinced Shiro to and it had gotten too late to go back to the Garrison, and it had been almost scarily easy for Keith to trust Shiro with a little more of his past than anyone got. 

So he'd guided them towards his dad's old house, Shiro being the first person (who wasn't a social worker) that had stepped foot into that part of Keith's life.

It feels right to go back there again, and Shiro doesn't question Keith. The old house is still not much to see, not after all the years of being almost abandoned in the desert, but it's the closest thing to a home Keith has, and it still holds enough memories for him that it still aches a bit, the faint whispers of his dad laughter being blown away by the wind. 

"Do you have to go back?" Keith asks Shiro once they park their bikes and Shiro laughs, shaking his head.

"I should be the one asking you that," Shiro teases him. Keith shrugs one shoulder and grins.

"I don't have classes tomorrow so I asked for a leave for the night," Keith answers, which is technically the truth. Because he really doesn't have classes in the morning, but he was originally going to burn through his last permit to be out of his room by lights out, not going back was going to get him into a lengthy detention and into a twenty minutes brief down with Iverson at the very _least_.

Shiro looks at him like he knows that but he also grins and shakes his head and this is what makes Keith adore Shiro, because he understands the impetuous devil inside him that wants to break every rule and push at every limit.

"Then let's make a night out of it."

Which is how they end up with Shiro making a bonfire for them while Keith goes into the house to ransack the few things Keith keeps there for when it's winter and summer break, a bag of almost-but-not-quite stale marshmallows that won't taste leathery once they're burnt to a crisp (how he likes them), chocolate and graham cookies for Shiro's s'mores, some off brand bags of chips, the old and beaten blankets that his dad used to use to help him build a fort when he was little.

Keith hesitates for a moment before grabbing an old, not open bottle of whiskey that belonged to his old man that before he goes back outside.

Shiro laughs when he sees the bottle and Keith tries to put his best innocent face, which is, frankly, terrible.

"Forgot how old are you, cadet?" Shiro teases him, taking the blankets to spread them on the floor. 

Keith shrugs.

"It's not like you're going to have any in about a year, are you?" Keith dares. "Besides, you're not going to be here for my eighteenth birthday," Keith counterattacks. "We can call this a pre-celebration."

Shiro rolls his eyes at him but then he grins, throwing an arm around his shoulders and taking the bottle to open it, and then even taking a drink directly from it.

"We're due to be back about a month after your birthday," Shiro snorts. "Wouldn't it make more sense for it to celebrate afterwards?"

"Don't believe in afters," Keith says, and he takes the bottle to take a drink as well, surprised by the unexpected sweetness of the whiskey, coughing a bit as he swallows. 

Shiro doesn't make fun of him for that (not that Keith thought he would, still, it's always nice when Shiro defies expectations against the rest of humanity) and when he sits down, Keith follows as well, sharing the bottle wit Shiro as they eat melty marshmallows and s'mores and they talk a little about everything and nothing. Shiro tells him the very first time he got drunk in High School (and laughs when Keith calls him a hypocrite) telling him about old friends and how much shit his grandfather gave him the next day.

"I must have fallen asleep around 3 and he woke me up around 6 so we could fix his car," Shiro says, shaking his head. "I promised myself I'd never get that drunk again after that."

"Was he angry?"

"No, he was very understanding about my 'youthful mishaps'. Not that it really stopped him from making sure I learned my lesson. I don't think I ever saw him angry with me," Shiro sighs and Keith knows intimately the kind of melancholy Shiro is feeling. "It was worse, tho. He got _disappointed._ "

Shiro remains quiet at that and then he takes another drink of the bottle. Keith really can't stand the silence, not the kind that settles around them, so he leans back over his hands to look towards the Milky Way above them.

"The year before my pops died, he bought me a telescope, big one, expensive as hell. I've still got it, saved among my pops' things," Keith says with a smile. "I have no idea where he got the funds for it. Whenever he had a night shift, I'd take advantage of that and stay up late at night with an astronomy book, pretty much memorizing the way the constellations look around this area."

"Really?" Shiro asks, and it's the kind of way he asks Keith for a challenge or for another bout on the training mat, or when they're at their bikes and going fast with the wind rushing between them. "Where is Kerberos, then?"

That hurts in ways that Keith hopes won't show on his face, but he rolls his eyes the way it was expected for him and turns to look towards the sky. It doesn't take him time to point at the correct set of stars. Not that there's _anything_ there for them to see, not without a telescope _at least_ , but Shiro makes a satisfied noise deep in his throat.

"Well, you'll know where to look at for us," Shiro says, his voice soft and warm and--

And Keith knows that neither he nor Shiro are drunk, that he won't have this as an excuse: Shiro has barely taken a couple sips and he barely even feels the edge of it around his tongue, but Keith also knows that there is no such thing as a later to bet on, that life goes on in a blink and the only 'after' that exists are the consequences, but Shiro looks so beautiful against the black drop of the Scorpious (his zodiac, Keith things, stupidly, as if that meant anything at all) and _it's not going to happen,_ , he knows that, realizes that it's a top-three-bad-ideas situation he might have and _he doesn't care_.

With the way Shiro is leaning towards him, he's close enough that he only has to lean forward a bit so he can kiss him. 

Shiro doesn't kiss him back, which-- was expected. He stays very still, and Keith refuses to back away instantly because he wants to make it as clear as possible that it wasn't a mistake, that it wasn't a drunken whim of his part. 

When he pulls away, Shiro is looking at him. Not angry, at least. Surprised yes, but not offended, mostly looking at him as if trying to understand.

So Keith decides that if the kiss didn't ruin it, why not make sure that he actually _does_ ruin it and... try.

"I like you, Shiro," he says, and he's not surprised that Shiro isn't surprised: even if the kiss hadn't happened, he's pretty sure that how he feels about Shiro must be as obvious as the sun, or so it feels for him.

"I like you too, Keith," Shiro starts and then, predictably: "As a friend. You're very important to me."

It's mostly that what makes Keith dare for more because hey, in the old stories, Icarus flew too close to the sun and then fell and died, but before that he _flew_ and that's what Keith takes from the story, not the fact that you might fall.

"I know you don't," he starts, halts, and then carries on. "I know you don't feel-- you don't see me that way. I'm-- I know, Shiro, I'm not stupid, okay? I _know_. But could you pretend, just for one night, that you do?"

"Keith, I'm honored," Shiro says, carefully and kindly breaking his heart. "But... you deserve more than that."

"Don't... don't say that, okay? It's not-- it's not about _deserve_ ", because if it was, Keith knows that he wouldn't be here, sharing the old shitty whisky his dad kept with a literal space hero who for some reason has always believed that Keith is worth something, and Keith could get to live one hundred and he won't ever be able to repay Shiro's trust. 

Keith doesn't know how to say that he doesn't want this to be with the hypothetical someone that for all he knows might not even exist that could, one day, love him back, because even if that person loves him, they won't be _Shiro_ and they won't mean what Shiro means to him because no-one ever will. He knows, _knows_ that that it's probably his youth and his crush and a million other things that Shiro is probably thinking as well, that the fact that right now it feels that his heart might never, ever get over how he feels about Shiro is probably an exaggeration, that when Shiro comes back, he _probably_ will look at him and it won't feel as if Shiro was his whole world between his careful, gentle hands. In a year, he'll probably look at Shiro and love him but it won't feel as if his whole universe has burning itself around Shiro.

But right now it _does_ feel like that and Keith has long since learned to live in the present, because there is no tomorrow and there might never me. And it has to be better, to have something, _someone_ you love even for a minute, instead of never, ever having them.

"But you love me," Keith says, and the fact that he knows that is still more than what he deserves. He doesn't deserve Shiro. The fact that he has even his friendship is more than someone like Keith should have.

He doesn't know how to ask without sounding as if he's begging, although he is, and he doesn't know how to pretend that he doesn't mean what he's saying. Shiro knows him too well for that. 

Something sad lurks over Shiro's eyes, and Keith closes his eyes, waiting for the final rejection, but instead he feels Shiro's hand cupping his face as if he's someone precious, and then Shiro leans forward, brushing his lips against Keith's softly, and it's still enough to almost make Keith shatter. 

Instead of just the soft kiss that Keith stole before, this time, Shiro pries his mouth open and lets Keith taste him, lets Keith pull him on top of him until he has Shiro's weight and the whole of the Arizona skies above him and Shiro is still more bright than any star in the universe. Shiro keeps the kiss slow, doesn't let Keith rush into it as if it was one of the couple of kisses he has traded with other students at the Garrison: Shiro kisses him as if they had whole hours to kiss and kiss and kiss until Keith feels like he's melting.

When Shiro moves to nuzzle against his neck and nip, gently and carefully, where a bruise would be hidden by the uniform, Keith shivers hard. 

"C'mon, Shiro," he begs because he already gave up on keeping anything resembling his pride, if it means he gets to almost, almost have Shiro. "Please."

"Are you sure?" Shiro asks, pulling back to look at him. He's flushed, eyes gone dark and heavy and that's something that Keith can treasure at least. "It's okay if we just do this, Keith."

And it's kind of Shiro to make sure, kind to pretend that he wants this, wants him, the way Keith wants him, but Keith doesn't want that kindness. So he reaches between them so he can press his hand against Shiro and-- is surprised to feel Shiro half hard. For this. For him.

"Can I suck you?" he asks, still rubbing his hand against Shiro's dick. "Please, Shiro."

Shiro breathes out a laugh, rolling over until he's laying on his back, keeping his left hand on Keith's shoulder.

"I should be begging 'please'," Shiro says fondly. Keith has to stop his hands from shaking too much so he can open Shiro's trousers to draw him out, trying to match Shiro's mood to draw things out, as if this was something usual among them instead of a pity fuck for a desperate idiot. 

He moans at the feel of Shiro's cock heavy on his tongue, and then again when Shiro's hand cards through his hair gently. Shiro is bigger than the couple of guys Keith has tried this on, but he still wants to show off, wants this to be good for Shiro, make it something that he won't regret so he tries to take as much of him as he can, wraps one hand over where he can reach to stroke him in time with his mouth, twirls his tongue over the tip before he swallows Shiro down again, and Keith is so hard that he doesn't dare touch himself for fear of coming into his pants, the taste of Shiro on his tongue and the feel of Shiro's hand on his head and he feels when Shiro tenses over, gets ready for the heavy taste of his come when Shiro's hand tightens in his hair and _just that_ is almost enough to make Keith finish.

"Wait, Keith, wait," Shiro asks and Keith pulls back but he almost whines at it.

"You can come in my mouth. I don't mind," especially when he's almost thinking of begging please.

Something dark and wanting goes through Shiro's eyes before he laughs, breathless, scrubbing a hand over his face.

"Good to know. But c'mere, Keith."

When he's close enough, Shiro draws him even closer, chest to chest, and then he's kissing him again, Shiro's big hands undress him, helping him take off his jacket, his shirt, push down his trousers and underwear. 

Shiro mouths against his neck, and if the nip from before didn't leave a bruise now he makes sure he does and Keith pants against him, desperate and needy.

"Shiro, _please_."

Shiro hums softly before pulling back to look at him. Keith doesn't know what he's looking for but he makes sure to look at him too, and then Shiro actually blushes and laughs, a little awkward. Is so stupidly charming that if Keith didn't know from before how much he loves this man, this would be the thing to do him in.

"I don't suppose you have condoms with you? Or lube?"

Keith blinks and then goes to his discarded clothes but he didn't bring his wallet or anything other than his keys, and he has never, ever brought any other classmate to this place. He turns to look at Shiro, who is still giving him that half awkward, half sheepish smile.

"I wasn't expecting I'd need them," Shiro explains, and then: "We'll have to remember them for the next time." And Keith has to bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.

There's no next time for this. This thing, Shiro's pity, Keith deciding he doesn't care, it's a one time thing. Anger burns bright in him and Keith wraps his legs around Shiro's slim hips to press their cocks together and so he can thrust against it, against him. Shiro arches against him and then he's holding him tight against him, big hands tight on his hips, helping him rut against him until he comes between them, gasping and shuddering, and he keeps moving, ignores how sensitive he feels, how it's almost too much, eyes intent on Shiro's face until he gets to see how Shiro looks when he comes. 

Keith fears the awkwardness of every single time he has done this before to settle between them, but Shiro doesn't let it. They clean up as best as they can with a few napkins and Shiro sacrifices a handkerchief to the cause and when they're mostly presentable he drags Keith close enough to kiss him again, laying down on the blankets, kissing him gently and softly until Keith falls down asleep while they're still making out, with Shiro's hands still going through his hair, soft against his back.

He wakes up first, still sleeping on Shiro's arm and he has to fight the urge to run away because it would be so easy: he sees himself grabbing his bike, reaching the Garrison, and going to train or hide for the last few hours just to avoid Shiro the last few hours before he and the Holts had to leave.

But it's _Shiro_ and he doesn't deserve Keith running away, not when he had given Keith what he asked for, when for a few precious hours he got to pretend that Shiro loved him the same way. So, as it is, he has to wait and try to calm his own temper and his broken heart that he broke _himself_ , willfully, pretty much smashing it with a hammer over and over again, but he is not about to take it out on Shiro for having done what Keith asked. 

He makes himself busy, going back to the house to grab a bag to stuff the trash, making sure the remains of the bonfire are out, and he doesn't quite startle when Shiro calls his name. 

"You should've woken me up to help you with that, Keith," Shiro says around a yawn.

"Hey," he says instead, tying up the bag, trying not to look too much towards Shiro, looking at him a little above his right shoulder. His voice sounds odd and he makes himself try to take the odd edge off his voice, tries not to think too much about how he can still feel the memory of Shiro's hands and touch over his body. "Ready to go?"

"Keith..."

If Shiro apologizes, Keith will punch him. 

But instead Shiro gets close to him and hugs him and Keith is left breathless, head leaning against Shiro's chest.

"I'll always be your friend, Keith," Shiro promises, both healing and breaking Keith's heart at the same time one last time.

But it's a thing Keith absolutely needed to be certain was still true between them, so he carefully moves to hug Shiro back. 

"I'm not going anywhere," he tells Shiro. And if his eyes sting and his throat feels tight, he can and will blame it on a hangover he doesn't have.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me over [my tumblr.](http://countlessuntruths.tumblr.com)


End file.
